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It’s been another pain-full week with only one day where I didn’t have any pain until closer to bedtime. I am definitely grateful for the day that I was almost pain free and it did in fact make the gratitude list.

I have been writing a LOT in my gratitude journal the past few days. I wrote a few hundred things in the last three days which is awesome! I switched it out of my planner and into my journal so I would have room for it all and room to plan… God is good!

It is so easy to become weary when the sky is in a perpetual state of grey. I am actually waiting for the snow. Yep you hear me, WAITING FOR THE SNOW. I need it to snow because once we have a nice layer over everything even a grey sky reflects light off of the snow and the weary dreary goes away and energy returns and life begins to feel normal again.

The sun was actually out this morning when I woke up and put the dogs out. I stood there reveling in it’s yellow warmth and soaked in ten or so minutes of vitamin D and it felt lovely. Unfortunately, it clouded over quickly afterwards and the chill in the air returned. Oh but that sun was beautiful and warm! And now the candles are lit and they remind me that the light of God is always there, even when the clouds are trying to stop me from seeing the light.

I would love to hear how you fight the blues during the fall and what makes you feel weary!? I think for me that the time change really doesn’t help with the grey days. Can you be jet lagged from daylight savings? Oy!

Remember to pray for Paris and the rest of the world right now. God always prevails but asking for Him to intercede can never hurt!

I have had a rough few days with my PTSD. I am feeling better today and actually found some real sleep last night instead of the drug induced kind.

I was watching Scandal the other night on Netflix and two new characters who were shown for all of 60 seconds screwed me up like nobody could. A series I have watched from day one and that has never triggered me before and in that 60 seconds I went from captive audience to ball of mess.

It wasn’t the show thought that messed with my head, it was the fact that the line that was said was written by a real person, and if the writer didn’t think of it on their own and found it online or somewhere else someone still thought it, some sicko came up with the idea.

You see, the line was something like “I am going to suspend you from the rafters and use a nail gun between the bones of your feet to hold you down” no, that’s not a direct quote, but that’s basically what was said. A nail gun. A tool for building houses at a faster rate, a tool for woodwork and shingles and roofing brought into the “game” as a way to torture and inflict pain.

That’s all it took was someone thinking that long enough to add it into a one liner in a show for me to unravel. This show is full of rape, kidnapping, torture… scandals, but they are all your basic everyday things that anyone can think of. Handcuffs. Locked rooms. You know, the stuff that makes up real life.

It’s the twisted stuff though that messes with me because I was hurt by the twisted and not the conventional. The bible was twisted to abuse me, to cut deep and turn the serrated edge of the knife. So when I hear or see that unconventional my mind flashes back to dangerous places. Places that almost killed me, people who only kept me alive because killing me would have been too easy. You see, when a cat plays with a mouse the game is over when the mouse dies and that’s exactly what I was –a mouse being tossed around by people who thought they were king of the jungle.

So, I freaked out when I heard this about the nail gun because it is something the psycho of my past would have done. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I was panicked-numb.

I will be okay.

I am okay.

Because God has this. God has me. He got me out of that mess and He spared me. He ended the torture and has pulled me along. I am alive because He created me to live.

I am not only okay. I am saved. I am redeemed. His law, His love, His Word are the only things that I need.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace~Ephesians 1:7~

I am simply tired this fall. Emotionally. I don’t know how to rest the soul and stop the ever growing soul-holes.

It is like I finally fill in a hole and trust and then Satan comes and pokes a few more.

It is easy to feel like Job, like God has handed me to Satan just so he can test my faith, see if I will break.

Yet, I wonder how much more shattered I can be. Is Satan aiming for powdered glass? Maybe turning me back into the dust from which I came –dust in the wind.

I wish I could fix everyone and everything. Yet, I am falling fast and hard and I don’t even know how to fix myself.

The scars on my arms ache to be cracked open for the release that comes when the blood flows and yet –I don’t want Jon to be disappointed in me. No, scratch that, I don’t want to break this 2 year chain and disappoint myself, which doesn’t stop the scars from calling my name and begging for a home –a place of prominence on sin-laden flesh.

Loneliness creeps in like the dark-blankets the falls evening sky. Everything has changed. Everything stays the same. In my own pain/sorrow I still beg to die.

Why?

I see soo many who just want another day. Another year. Yet here I am wasting the time I do have out of fear, out of loss, out of…

I wish I wanted to live and I wish I took advantage of every moment and I just don’t know how. And part of me doesn’t want to know because if I learn then I have to figure out a way to move on and moving on means I might forget and I never want to forget because that will always bring me back to pain, as sure as the moon pulls in the oceans tide the pain will roll in on a wave.

Maybe Satan/evil lives in me and we are glued together –one in the same.

I blankly stare at the download on my computer screen and know I’ve been waiting hours for it to finish and there are still 80+ minutes left. For a download that probably won’t even work.

The blueberry wax melt smelling good and also a lot like wax. I am candle spoiled –if that’s a thing. Something about the flicking light, the melted aroma and the warmth that petite flame ignites.

Everything has an opposite, I could sit here and write out the dark and light of everything but I think you all already realize that the universe is far more complex than our human minds can possibly ever truly grasp. This is why we have science after all, a deep underlying desire to try and figure it all out, to understand the incomprehensible a little more clearly, though if we are being honest, I think it is fair to say that we are more often than not, left with more questions than answers and a hypothesis that hangs in the air, heavy and burden laden with no place to rest.

It’s Halloween today. Some are not celebrating it, others consider it to be a secular holiday and others go all out the way Christians do for Christmas. Years ago, when my daughter was little and I had my son on the way, we had friends who didn’t do Disney or Halloween because of the evil connotations that it comes with, the magic of it all… perhaps because they were afraid that if they dressed their little one like a pumpkin something worse than a few cavities would happen or maybe because they found a piece of doctrine that spoke to them in a way that it simply never has to me and so many others. I don’t know.

What I do know is that everything can be used for good just as everything and anything can be used for evil. The gun used to slaughter those people in the church was used for evil, yet the same model with a different serial number that was used for protection was used for good. So how do we draw the line? Are people born either good or evil? Can one switch between the two or are we simply a product of observation and a victim of our time?

Personally, I believe that one can change, the way the sky is bright during the day and black at night. I believe we all are born innocent, or as innocent as possible for a human to be and that sin tempts us from birth causing us to do evil in some instances and good in others and to those who look on at us, some will see no wrong while others see only fault.

While this Halloween my children are not going out, it is their own personal choice. They decided they wanted to spend their costume money on discounted candy on November 1st instead.

We all wear costumes though, every. single. day. of the year.

You see, we put smiles on our faces when our hearts are feeling sad or even shattered. We cry when we are happy and we cry when we are sad. We tell white lies convincing ourselves that the truth would do more damage than good and somehow a white lie morally isn’t as bad as a flat out lie.

But why?

Why is it that the very Bible I study each day was used by man to serve Satan and break me into more pieces than I may ever pick up? How is it that Satan can use the Good Book to commit evil crimes? We can’t all blame possession for our misdoings and we can’t toss it under a rug like an unfortunate misfortunate –we have to own what we do and beg forgiveness and work to change our ways.

So whether you are dressed as the risen dead today or are carrying a sweet lady bug on your hip, evil isn’t built into the costume or into the date. It is something primal that surrounds each of us pulling hard down and we have to give all of our good to keep the bad away, not just today, but every day, because every day is going to blanket us in layers of choices and no answer may ever seem completely right, so we ask for guidance and we pray and we stand strong in the face of adversity and hold onto our morals and recognize our virtues and praise His holy name for what we do have and beg Him for what we don’t and in the end, everything will be alright.

As the Scriptures say, “People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field. The grass withers and the flower fades. But the word of the Lord remains forever.” And that word is the Good News that was preached to you.
~1 Peter 1:24-25 NLT~

It seems like this fall has been death after death and then some. I know that the Lord is whispering names and calling people home to Heaven but I struggle and ask God why He is whispering the names of people I know or who have been in my life.

I am trying to trust in His perfect timing because that’s exactly what it is –perfect. Yet it really is a struggle. I am simply worn out, tear stained and growing weary and fatigued.

Sometimes, shutting the world out is the way I protect myself, even though it’s definitely not the best.

I have found myself in the trenches in the past and begged the Lord to call my name instead, to take me back. I have read Job and felt as though the Lord has walked away from me and doesn’t want me, not here or in Heaven and in a lot of ways this thought helped shape some of my beliefs. I believe that purgatory and hell exist. I believe that we are living that here on earth and that the unpublished gospel of Thomas saying that Heaven is a state of mind and something we can totally achieve on earth if we seek it, is true, however, I also believe that we need to seek God in order to achieve Heaven –anywhere.

So I will wait until He whispers my name. My ears will be open and I will love long and hard during the time He has gifted me to have whilst here.

My tea has been reheated 3 times today and is once again cold. I don’t feel like getting up to warm the water again so I suppose it was bound to be consumed this way. At least I am not tweeting about burning my tongue, again.

I’ve been in bed most of the weekend. Pain, emotional and physical, has overwhelmed me and pulled me down. My heart feels not only shattered, but scattered and sometimes I wish I didn’t know people, how easy life would be if I didn’t know anyone, because then I would never have to experience loss. Only then, I would never be blessed to experience love.

I have had a lot of loss in my life. Far too much. I envy a few friends who have never attended a funeral, this fall I have been to one, and have been unable to attend three others. My faith is shaken –not stirred, when I read a birth announcement that also announces an infants near immediate death. I am left to pray.

Some may say “only to pray” but ONLY isn’t really a fitting word with God is it? When I pray I am not settling for something less than, instead I am going to the One who is more than, who listens to my every word, my every thought and fear. Who brings me peace and comfort in the darkest of hours and shines His light bright on every situation.

I am trying to focus on the stories of the Old Testament, you know the one that leads to David and our yearly Jesse Tree. Where Rebekah and servants and husbands and sons and being barren all lead to the coming of the One Son.

I wonder to myself, as I sip on the cold tea and notice the sweet stevia for the first time in a few hours, how will God use my messes to glorify Him today, tomorrow and in centuries to come? Will my messed up life be like the messed up life of Jacob and come full circle out of the mess and into the Light? Will God use my gore for His Glory!?

I snuggle down deep into the down comforter and the crisp cold raises goosebumps on my flesh and I pray for all those things and so much more and God stills the waters of my mind and turns the oceans tides into good right before my eyes.

Tonight,even with all that seems wrong, I feel a peace that everything is perfectly right.

BECAUSE I am a Christian I understand exactly what this author means. BECAUSE I am a Christian I put loving others first and BECAUSE I am a Christian I don’t love people “only if they fit into a small box” I live in Love because Jesus commanded us as His followers “Love one another as I have loved you, also that you love one another”.

Jesus reached out to the sinners, He broke bread with them, shared wine with them, healed the sick that society had cast aside, befriended the prostitute and forgave the thief. Jesus didn’t come and hang out with those who were righteous, he came down to teach us to live in the glory of His love forever.

It took me years to be “openly Christian” because I didn’t want to lose my friends who have killed, done drugs, are gay, took the name of God in vain. I became openly Christian because I wanted to extend an olive branch, to teach those about the amazing things we can experience if we only live in God’s LOVE and that LOVE is for every one of his creatures because God? He didn’t make any mistakes!

If you look at someone’s life and you don’t accept them then that is Satan whispering in your ear that you are better, that that person deserves you to pass judgement on them, because God?? God said “Judge not lest ye be judged” It isn’t up to you or me or a celebrity to decide who is right in God’s eyes. We are commanded, simply to love.

And, if you or anyone else want to sit there feeling righteous while full of contempt and hate, based on one biblical line written before Jesus ever walked the earth then you need to follow every commandment that is laid out in the Bible for us, all 613 of them, because I would bet money that that celebrity you are listening to, or the old lady at church, has eaten the meat of animals with cloven hooves, had shellfish or milk with pork. And chances are, you have too. And since God says no sin is bigger than the next one then they all need to be considered in the same fashion.

If you can toss love aside to express disgust and hate for the way someone lives than you need to ask yourself, “If God is the Father of Love and creates no mistakes, why am I so angry?”

Born and raised in Kenora, Ontario Canada, Marisa was a teen mom who has overcome incredible circumstances in order to provide the best life she can for her small family. Avid reader, blogger and a God-loving Christian, are just a few of the titles Marisa holds. Reading the Word and learning about God and His plans for her life are her current mission.